Examples of Life Goals For Success and Happiness

October 12, 2021 Lifestyle

Life can be unpredictable, but having life goals that you’re constantly striving towards can bring you a sense of direction and help guide you through any uncertainty you encounter so that you always know what you want and where you’re going in life. This list of life goals examples will hopefully also motivate and inspire you to get to work on making your dreams into a reality!

Why Should You Set Goals For Yourself?

It’s really important to have a sense of direction and purpose in life, and setting life goals is one of the best ways to achieve meaning and to motivate yourself to keep striving and working towards your dreams. When things are shaken up, your goals will keep you going down the right path and headed towards a place of contentment and personal fulfilment.

How Do You Set Life Goals?

I would recommend being as specific as possible and making sure that your life goals are attainable and measurable (think the “SMART” goal setting method). Some great examples would be “I want to read two books in the next 30 days” or “I want to lose 5 pounds in the next two weeks”. This way, you can keep yourself accountable and on the right track!

How Do You Stay Committed To Your Life Goals?

Make sure you don’t overwhelm yourself. In order to stay committed, your goals need to be realistic and achievable!
Always stay guided by your purpose in life. Keep a crystal clear vision in your head of WHY you are working towards the things that you’re working towards.
Picture how your life will be and the type of person you’ll be once you complete your major goals. This will serve as your inspiration and motivation to keep going!
Remember that these life goals examples are just here to motivate and inspire you, and you don’t need to be striving for ALL of these at once! Pick a few that really resonate with you and get to work on just those first.

What Are Some Life Goals Examples?

Some examples would fall into these categories:

Financial and career life goals examples
Health and fitness goals
Personal development goals
Relationship and family life goals examples
Spirituality goals

General Life Goals Examples

These are small and easily attainable goals in life that you can work on right now to start improving your life overnight!

1. Wake Up Earlier

Waking up earlier is a great goal to set and achieve because we as humans are typically most productive and efficient earlier on in the day, so creating as much time for yourself early on is a great strategy to start getting more done each day.

Even just waking up 20 or 30 minutes earlier than what you’re used to could create a significant positive change in your life, so put this life goals example to good use!

2. Don’t Look At Your Phone For The First 30 Minutes Of The Day

This one is tough because so many of us use our phones as alarm clocks and/or sleep with them right next to our heads, but seriously try it out just once and see how much of a positive difference it makes in your mood that morning!

I find that leaving the first half hour or so of the day free enables you to focus on doing things that actually make you happy, like sitting and enjoying a fresh cup of coffee, instead of checking social media and seeing what everyone else is up to and getting yourself down before you’ve even left the house!

3. Start Journaling Once A Day

This is something that can take as little or as long as you want it to. You can do even just five minutes of writing in a journal every morning or an hour if you want – it’s something that is completely up to you and how you’re feeling in the moment. Use your journal to write out random thoughts and blurbs, things that you’re hoping to accomplish that day, reflections on your day that has ended, or anything you want to!

This is a really great life goal example because journaling is an amazing way to gather your thoughts and really reflect and think about everything that’s going on in your life. It’s a mindfulness practice that helps you retain memories and become more in tune with truly experiencing life.

4. Spend More Time Outside

Being outside and spending time in nature is something we all should probably do more of. It’s essential for staying grounded and relieving some of your stress from the everyday hassles of life. Aim to go for a walk (weather permitting) or even just out into your backyard for 10 minutes each morning and just really take that peaceful time outdoors for yourself!

5. Eat More Plant Based

Eating mostly clean, plant based vegan food is so important for human health. It’s the most ideal diet for losing weight and maintaining a healthy weight, for optimal health, and just for living a long and prosperous life in general. As a result, this would be a great example of one of the many life goals you could set for yourself to really optimize your physical and even your mental wellbeing and take the best possible care of yourself going forward.

Your body is your home, it’s your temple, so take great care of it and then reap the many benefits!

Financial and Career Life Goals Examples

This list of life goals examples is here to provide you with some inspiration to go after your dream life and make the money you’ve always dreamed of making.

1. Start Investing

This is something I truly feel that absolutely everyone needs to be doing. It is so easy to start investing what with all the fee free apps available these days, and there’s also tons of information out there on what the best stocks are for beginners to be buying. I have actually learned so much on this topic from watching TikTok videos, and there are also many free investment related courses that you can take online to boost your investing knowledge and start saving for your retirement.

2. Start That Business You’ve Been Thinking About

Life is too short, so go ahead and start that business you’ve been wanting to start! This is a great example of a goal in life that so many people have but not too many actually take action on. It’s easier than ever these days with the internet and social media basically ruling everything around us, so there’s no excuses anymore.

3. Pay Off Loans and Debt

So many of us have college debt, credit card debt, or both, so an example of a life goal that you could make would be to pay it off within a certain time frame! You can set savings targets for yourself to attain and pay off your debt in small chunks over a period of time. This is an awesome life goals example to have – paying off debt is always a great feeling!

4. Take Yourself On A Trip

Money comes and goes in life, but you can’t get back your time. So, save up and then spend a little bit of your hard earned cash to travel somewhere you’ve never been but always wanted to go! We all need to do things like this to be able to keep our motivation to continue working and striving towards bigger and better things.

5. Create An Emergency Fund

This is a great example of a life goal that you can start working on literally right now. Create a separate savings account that you contribute to whenever you can, and remember that every small bit will add up significantly over a long enough period of time! Having this emergency fund will help eliminate at least some stress from your life and give you a cushion if anything bad or unexpected happens in life.

Health and Fitness Life Goals Examples

These life goals examples will motivate you to achieve your dream body and feel great about yourself. Check out this list below if you want to work out more and eat healthier!

1. Get Down To Your Ideal Weight (And Stay There)

This is going to be different for everyone out there, but we all have a rough number of what our ideal weight would be that makes us feel best about ourselves. Make it a goal in your life to get to that weight and stay there so that you’re going out into the world as the most confident version of yourself possible!

2. Work Out Consistently

Exercising and working out cause your body to produce more serotonin and endorphins, which in turn trigger feelings of happiness and positivity. Fitness is truly part of a happy and healthy life, so you can make it a life goal of yours to work out regularly if you can.

3. Make Sure You Sleep 8+ Hours

This is an important life goals example, since we all need enough sleep to be able to function properly and cope with the pressures of life. For most people, the ideal amount of sleep is usually right around eight hours, but for you it could be slightly more or slightly less. Figure out your optimal sleep amount and then try to incorporate a sleep schedule that you stick to so that you’re falling asleep and waking up at pretty much the same times every single day!

4. Eat More Clean and Plant Based Food

I mentioned this one earlier on in the post, but it’s worth mentioning again since it is honestly SO important for your health and wellbeing. The more fiber, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals you can consume from clean, plant based and vegan sources the better!

5. Stop Restricting Yourself

Long gone are the days of calorie counting and restricting macros (or at least, they should be). Calories are literally a unit of energy and they are not inherently bad – it just depends on the source of the calorie. Calories from foods like fruits, veggies, and whole grains are what fuel your body and give you the energy to go about all of the things that you do in a day, so stop restricting and instead upgrade the source of where your calories are coming from!

Personal Development Life Goals Examples

This list will help you grow as a person and further your personal development.

1. Read One Book Per Month

Reading is such a great exercise to keep your mind sharp and to always be continually learning and bettering yourself. You can aim to read one book a month, as that is pretty realistic for most people, especially if you put your phone down at night and do some reading every night before you go to sleep. On this list of life goals examples, this is probably my favorite because I truly think reading is one of the best things you can possibly do to learn and grow as a person!

2. Meet New People and Cultivate New Friendships

In life, people make tons of friends while they’re in school, and then as we get older it becomes very difficult to meet many new people (aside from the ones that we work with). So, an amazing idea of a life goals example you could have would be to meet new people in Meetup groups or other types of social clubs so that you can cultivate new friendships and keep a healthy circle of friends around you.

3. Work On Increasing Your Productivity

You most likely have areas in your life where you can cut down on the amount of time it takes you to do certain things so that you have more valuable time to be more productive and make things happen. For example, if you find yourself laying in bed for 45 minutes after your alarm goes off, try to cut that down to 15 or less and you’ll probably be surprised by how you’re less stressed and hurried in the mornings!

Or, if you’re spending too much time on social media and not enough time working on more important things, try deleting the apps from your phone (even temporarily) until you can get your usage under control. These are just a couple of examples of life goals that can make you more productive, but you know your life and what you need to work on best!

4. Give Back To Your Community

A lot of the life goals examples on this list are centered around improving yourself, but giving back to your community improves the lives of those around you as well. Find a cause to volunteer your time towards or a nonprofit that you can make a monetary donation to – this is super fulfilling and a really good way to uplift others around you.

5. Find A New Hobby

Learning new skills and discovering new hobbies is one category of life goals examples that always keeps life interesting! So, find what you’re interested in and pursue it as a hobby in your downtime to switch things up a little. This could be learning a new language, starting a garden in your backyard, or whatever else you can come up with that interests you.

6. Try Something That Scares You

They say that growth happens outside of your comfort zone, so doing something that makes you nervous or scares you a little is amazing for your development as a person. This could be going on a solo trip, or even just going to dinner by yourself, but make sure it’s something that intimidates you (and is safe!). This is one of my favorite life goals examples because we all need to be independent and happy on our own in life.

7. Cut Down On Your Screen Time

We’re all guilty of spending way too much time looking at our phones and computer screens all day long, so another great example of a life goal would be to aim to reduce this time and instead spend your valuable time doing more productive things. You could take an hour of your daily screen time that you spend just scrolling and use it to read a book or call a family member or friend!

Relationship and Family Life Goals Examples

These life goals examples will help you develop and strengthen relationships in your personal life with those you care about.

1. Meet Up With A Friend Once Per Week

With everything that’s been going on in the world lately and the fact that many of us are spending a lot more time at home these days, it’s all too easy to lose touch with friends and stop meeting up with them as time goes on. But this is SO important for our mental health, so I always say it’s good to aim to meet up with at least one friend one time a week. You can grab coffee, go and do a workout together, or just whatever you normally do with your friends, as long as you’re seeing them in person!

2. Call A Family Member Once A Week

This will be different for everyone, since you might call your family more often than this, but if you don’t already, it’s a great thing to strive towards. Your parents probably really want to hear from you (especially if you live in a different city than they do) and hearing their voices will brighten up your day too.

Thank you so much for checking out my list of life goals examples to help you achieve success, fulfillment and happiness! These examples of goals in life are all great things to aspire to and work toward. I hope that these will push you to go for your dreams and truly live your best life.

Let me know in the comment section down below if you’ve thought of any life goals examples that you think I should add to the list, or if you have discovered any here that have motivated or inspired you!

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Stay healthy, safe, and talk soon xx